19-05-2015 | Uitgave 11/2015
Complex coevolution of depression and health-related quality of life in old age
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- Quality of Life Research > Uitgave 11/2015
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Electronic supplementary material
The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11136-015-1005-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
For the AgeCoDe Study Group.
Steffi G. Riedel-Heller and Hans-Helmut König have contributed equally to this work.
Abstract
Purpose
To investigate the coevolution of depression and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in old age.
Methods
In a representative survey of the German general population aged 75 years and older, the course of HRQoL and depression was observed over 4.5 years (3 waves). HRQoL was assessed by the Visual Analogue Scale (EQ VAS) of the EQ-5D instrument, while the Geriatric Depression Scale was used to measure depression. A panel vector autoregressive model was used to account for the complex coevolution of depression and HRQoL. Unobserved heterogeneity was taken into account by taking the first differences.
Results
We revealed a robust negative association between an initial change in HRQoL and a subsequent change in depression score, with substantial sex differences: In women there was a robust association, while in men the significance of this association depended on the model specification. Surprisingly, in the total sample and in both sexes, no robust association between an initial increase in depression and a subsequent change in HRQoL was found.
Conclusion
Findings indicate that the direction of evolution from HRQoL to depression deserves more attention. Furthermore, treatment of depression in late life should aim at improving HRQoL in which remission of depressive symptoms is necessary but not sufficient.